I was inspired to try this after reading over the thread inTempus started with the water drops. Basically, I was reading what him and Derrel were talking about in terms of settings for the camera.

None of it made sense to me.

I went and tried it with completely different settings and techniques then they were talking about. I am the type to just get the basics, and then go try it. So today I decided to try a very cliche shot that everyone on flickr does. I have never tried anything like this, so it was a fun experience.

First the set up. The hardest part was the timing. I used my D90 set up on a tripod about 3-4 feet from the table. I practiced TWO times with a cup of water. Then this was the third attempt. I feel pretty lucky to have gotten this shot just after two practices. But basically all I did was have the camera on remote mode, and used the ML-L3 fire the camera. I timed the 'drop' with the pre-flash. Thus I had the sb-600 mounted on my camera.

Here are the settings I went with.

Exposure:1/4000 secAperture:f/2.8Focal Length:50 mmISO Speed:200

My flash was on TTL and I had it at -2.0

Here is the result, I would love to here what you guys think. BTW, I know the background is distracting, but I just wanted to try and get a good frozen shot of the liquid in mid-air. Next time i'll try to compose it better.

i can't offer any tips since i have no experience with this type of shot, but i think you did a great job. it's a tad overexposed like you said, but i think you have stopped the action perfectly. i really dig the DOF and how many drops are out of focus and kinda 'bokeh'd out'

Do you have a version of Photoshop? You can check the exposure in ACR.

Open the image in ACR, hold down the 'Alt' key and and left click on the Exposure slider indicator. The screeen will go completely black, unless you have areas in the image at 255. Those areas will show up and the color they are indicate which color channels are blown. White means all 3 R, G, and b are gone. You can move the slider back and forth to adjust the image. If your image is a JPEG your more limited.